PROTECT THE WILD. CAN WE END FOX HUNTING AND OTHER HUNTING FOR EVER

Week in, week out, Protect the Wild reports on foxes being murdered, hunt staff harassing monitors or being violent towards them, hounds causing havoc on public roads, and more. Most hunts get away with all of this with total impunity. Why? Because of exemptions and loopholes written into the Hunting Act 2004 as it passed through Parliament.

But we have a solution, and we need your help to make it happen.

The majority of campaigner groups and organisations – including big names like the League Against Cruel Sports, RSPCA, PETA and Animal Aid – are calling for the Hunting Act to be strengthened. Protect the Wild also used to campaign for this; it’s why we were initially founded as Keep the Ban.

But we have changed our stance, and are campaigning for a much bigger outcome. We don’t want to reform the Hunting Act; we want it scrapped completely and replaced with a new law: the Hunting of Mammals Bill. Inspired by Scotland, which recently passed its own Hunting With Dogs Act, we know that legislative change is possible.

Protect the Wild argues that we need a multi-pronged approach in order to abolish hunting once and for all. We need watertight new legislation, which we will go into below, but we also need pro-wildlife politicians in government to make such legislation pass.

Why not strengthen the Hunting Act?

We see time and time again how hunt staff get away with hunting under the guise that they’re carrying out a lawful activity known as trail hunting (which is where packs follow an artificially laid scent trail instead of a fox). Whether the police actually believe this is the case or not, it gives forces and landowners the excuse not to take action against hunts. And even if the police do decide to investigate and prosecute a hunt, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) then needs to prove that the hunter in question set out to actually kill a fox that day. This requirement to prove intent makes convictions hard to come by. Because of this, the CPS drops cases when it feels the likelihood of conviction is low.

Loopholes such as these were written into the Hunting Act by pro-hunt members of Parliament. Protect the Wild argues that these loopholes and exemptions have changed a straightforward piece of legislation banning the hunting of wild mammals with hounds into something far more uncertain and malleable.

Campaigning for the Hunting Act to be strengthened will give the same pro-hunting politicians the opportunity once again to ensure that the law will remain tenuous. We can not give them the chance to derail animal welfare legislation yet again.